


Ianto's Not Dead in This One

by DinoDina



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Drabble Collection, Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, Ficlet Collection, M/M, Series 03 Fix-It: Children of Earth (Torchwood), Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25176478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinoDina/pseuds/DinoDina
Summary: Or should I say: in these ones?A small ficlet/drabble collection to mark the very-much-alive status of one Ianto Jones.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 18
Kudos: 41





	1. Celestial Harmonies

**Author's Note:**

> Some discussion of religion in this chapter.

Ianto wasn't expecting celestial harmonies to greet him when he woke up. He'd never been a bad person, not _really_ —morally questionable, at times, but that was humanity more than anything, and while he objectively blamed himself for Lisa's death and the destruction she'd left in her wake at Torchwood Three, he knew that the fault lay in his stupidity and sorrow rather than a deeper moral failing. Jack said so often enough, at least.

He expected not to see anything. Suzie, Owen, and Jack had described a vast, terrifying nothingness that sucked the life out of their already dead selves. Gwen, he knew, tried not to think about mortality. Tosh, as far as he knew, had taken a pragmatic approach to the whole thing and had declared—after too much wine—that she was entering the great beyond with an open mind but no rush.

Long ago, Ianto had been raised in a moderately religious household. Church on Sundays? Mostly, if his father wasn't too drunk. Church on Christmas? No way in Hell, that was a day for partying, not piety.

So, no, Ianto didn't expect an angel or a demon to greet him, to list off his accomplishments or failings, respectively, before leading him off into eternity. He expected fear and loneliness—something out of the nightmares he pretended he didn't have—or perhaps peace at last.

Peace was the last thing he was getting.

Not much had changed when he woke up. The ceiling was grey and high up above him, the floor was cold despite the body bag he was in, and right over his head Gwen was weeping softly and clutching at Jack's hand—Jack, who was turned away.

Thinking Ianto was dead.

Right.

He shifted as he felt blood start rushing through his veins again, triggering the worst pins and needles since that one time when he was nine that Rhiannon had sat on him.

Ianto had expected many things to happen after his death, some good, some bad—but none of them involved coming back to life. It was strange and uncomfortable, but Ianto was a master of avoidance in the name of pragmatism. Certainly he'd expected death to stick, but since it hadn't, he had a job to do.

Right after Jack finished kissing the life out of him.

Metaphorically.

Ianto was very much alive, and he had a world to save.


	2. No Beans This Time

Funny, that they had still called Jack "Captain" when he had been on the run. It was his rank, of course, but Ianto had expected him to be reduced to a simple fugitive, no pomp or accuracy about it.

If everything had been normal and the children of the world weren't being controlled by aliens, Ianto would have found Jack—wearing nothing but his coat and standing on a pedestal of truth and righteousness—quite arousing.

He was a simple man at his core in that way.

_Bloody beans._

And now, here he was, crisis averted and children returned to their parents, and Captain Jack Harkness remained elusive, sitting in the small office he'd set up months ago in Ianto's flat, pretending he was fielding calls and coordinating the repairs on the Plass.

Ianto wasn't stupid. He was Jack's secretary as well as his lover—the modern term would call him 'Personal Assistant' and Ianto liked to laugh at how personal he and Jack really were. It had been just under a week since the 456 had left Earth for good, missile nipping at their tail, and in that time, Jack had coordinated with UNIT and the collective governments of the world about returning to normal. His calls were scheduled directly through Ianto and put into a nice color-coded calendar, again, by Ianto.

The point was that Jack was not busy and that Ianto was feeling decidedly ignored. He wasn't a cheap date—he deserved more than a fleeting kiss after escaping certain death.

"It's not like it's the whole Alice business," Ianto grumbled to himself—or perhaps to the coffee machine—as he prepared for yet another lonesome lunch.

Alice and Steven were a part of Jack's life that hurt. After everything he still saw them as a mistake, a failing on his part to keep people happy and safe. Ianto wasn't about to pretend that he was happy Jack had hidden them from him, but he understood.

He had kept secrets, too.

And now that secret had bitten him in the arse, getting him out of Thames House alive but at the cost of his relationship with Jack.

They had kissed, fresh out of the jaws of death, Ianto as alive as he'd ever been—ignoring the dried tear tracks on Jack's cheeks, the curious looks Gwen shot him, both of them having expected him to stay gone—and since then it had been business as usual.

Ianto was ready to parade naked around the flat.

It wasn't his fault that his mum hadn't been a loyal wife, was it? That she'd stepped out on her distant husband and turned to greener and much less human pastures, ending up with a son whose eyes were just a little bit too blue and who breathed a little too slowly?

His mum's infidelity was in the past, but the secret— _that_ was all Ianto's fault now. In his defense, how exactly had he been supposed to explain to the leader of Torchwood that he wasn't entirely human?

Ianto grabbed a second cup for Jack's coffee. What was done was done. What was in the future, however, was a long-overdue conversation. And after that, hopefully, sex. No beans this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The premise of this chapter is kind of similar to another fix-it I did a while ago: [Free as a Bird](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21794347).


	3. A Prehensile Tail

"I think it's cute," Jack said.

Ianto scowled; his words were innocent enough but the shit-eating grin spoke for itself.

"Come on," Jack continued, "look on the bright side."

Ianto's scowl deepened. " _What_ , exactly, is the bright side supposed to be?"

"You look good?"

"I always look good." Ianto waited for Jack to nod—which he did with enough assertion that Ianto felt better—then uncrossed his arms and turned around. "I didn't need a fucking _tail_ as an accessory!"

His tail swished angrily back and forth.

Ianto couldn't see Jack walk closer, but he heard the footsteps of his heavy boots and imagined the placating gesture Jack made with his hands. The traitorous tail whacked Jack on the arse when he passed, which didn't help Ianto's case.

"We'll figure it out, okay?" Jack said.

"I know." Ianto sighed. He relaxed nonetheless, tension leaving his shoulders and tail slowing down. "I liked these trousers, though."

They had cut a hole in them several hours previously, when the tail had appeared. The material was strong enough not to rip further, but Ianto wasn't looking forward to mutilating his entire wardrobe—or even a small portion of it—on the chance that the physical malfunction would last longer than a day. Sacrificing some clothes was infinitely better than wearing the same trousers for more than one day, however.

"I'll buy you a new pair."

"Sweet-talker."

"Only the best for you."

Ianto snorted but his tail twitched in amusement. He knew it was amusement the same way that he knew every other micro-expression his body was capable of; the tail, unlike the rest of Ianto, couldn't mask its feelings yet, and Ianto hoped that wouldn't bite him in the arse later.

"We'll fiddle with the device and figure out what exactly it did." Fuck, but Ianto loved Jack's leader-voice. Very assertive. And even sexier when he started solving extraterrestrial problems. "It changed your molecular makeup somehow, we just need to see if it extends to just the tail or if it goes deeper. If it's permanent. That's more likely if it's nanogene-based; there's some sort of goal, there. Or it could be a carnival toy. Either way, we'll figure it out."

"I take it you're going to do a very thorough check?"

"Naturally."

The leer was comforting, even as the tail continued to act up, straightening out loose papers and knickknacks as Ianto followed Jack to the Hub's main floor. It was quite useful, actually, getting all those things Ianto didn't have time to do when he usually walked with Jack, then too busy on talking or groping.

He wasn't calmer, per se, but strange things happened at Torchwood. Technology malfunctioning and giving innocent employees prehensile tails was hardly the strangest thing that Ianto had witnessed, even if a permanent change of his basic makeup was a side-effect.

Who knew, maybe it would come in handy someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then Ianto survived CoE and lived happily ever after. The end. 
> 
> A bit sillier, but who doesn't love tech mix-ups? In my defense, I'm writing these as I go based on a random word generator (today's word was "cute") so this just kind of happened. :P


	4. Naked Volleyball

Jack always cheated. Naked hide-and-seek, naked tag, strip poker, strip monopoly—Ianto had put his foot down at scrabble, which was hard enough without the element of stripping and yet-nonexistent sex terms Jack insisted on using.

It was a miracle they had lasted as long as they had in this current tie, but Jack had won the last round and Ianto was not about to let that slide.

Naked volleyball, indeed.

A thoroughly bad idea from all angles. The sunburn was bad enough, though they had thankfully taken advantage of Jack's private beach—because of course he owned a private beach—and hadn't had to deal with Cardiff's constabulary—Ianto wouldn't have been able to live down PC Andy arresting him for indecent exposure—but how had Ianto been supposed to focus with Jack _right there_?

Jack had made fun of him for the loss for days. Ianto was a strong runner, not a proper athlete. He'd spent time on other things in school, then gone on to school and left to join Torchwood. It wasn't as if he'd had the time to perfect his ball skills.

His _traditional_ ball skills.

So when Ianto died, choking on an unknown gas with a perverted alien laughing from mere feet away behind protective glass, he was peeved.

Death? He'd expected it. Had waited for it for years, being perfectly prepared since his first day at work and long resigned to the possibility of experiencing it. Not that he was looking forward to it, of course not, but Ianto was a careful and organized man. He refused to be taken by surprise, even by sudden death.

 _Especially_ but alien-fart-induced sudden death. He deserved, at the very least, to go out guns blazing.

Not leaving Jack to fight alone against the corrupt governments of the world, sacrificing their children to save their own hides. Not leaving Jack alone to face eternity—Ianto wasn't about to pretend that he was the pinnacle of Jack's existence, but they had fun. They had happiness.

They had an ongoing competition, and Ianto was not about to lose, even with a tie. _Not_ to naked volleyball.

The world faded to black and the last thing Ianto felt was Jack's arms around him; the last thing he saw was Jack's eyes boring into his, imploring him to stay and shining with unshed tears. Ianto wanted to reach out and hold Jack's hand in his final moments to comfort him, wanted to say something, a final word that didn't blame Jack, that freed him of the promise to remember—no matter how he wanted to stay with Jack forever—and let him move on; he couldn't, couldn't even remember how to speak or breathe because it was all gone, just a memory, and the reality of death set in.

A deeper reality overtook Ianto, then, an infinite blackness calling him to something more, something beyond, something that Jack wouldn't be able to see for eons to come. It might have looked inviting in Ianto was over with this world, if he'd died well and finished with his duties.

And there were so many duties—the 456, his sister, the ruined Hub, the missing sheep and sightings of Myfanwy in the countryside, Gwen's baby, Jack's annoying superiority as if he wasn't the biggest cheater Ianto had ever met. No, Ianto had far too much to do.

He turned on the spot, if there was a spot to turn on, for there wasn't exactly a space that he existed in at the moment, and opened his eyes on a warehouse floor, limbs slightly stiff and eyes already protesting the harsh overhead lights, but _alive_.


	5. Something More

Ianto's head felt full of cotton wool and his limbs were too heavy to move. They were there, he thought, they just weren't… _there_. He wasn't sure _he_ was all there, either, but his eyelids were too heavy to lift and the white noise between his ears did little as he tried to ground himself.

He was lying down. Maybe. Maybe not.

Maybe this was a final hallucination the world allowed him on his way out. It wasn't exactly calming—Ianto was feeling decidedly less than calm, actually, currently feeling like little more than a confused brain trapped under a thick blanket. Not the nice kind that protected from the chill. The oppressive, scratchy kind that didn't move until both hands were involved to throw the blanket away.

No, Ianto was sure that this was real, as real as anything else he'd experienced. If only he could open his eyes and look around…

" _That's silly,"_ a voice said suddenly into his head, only not so much _into_ his head as into its natural place, which now happened to be Ianto's head. More concrete than any of Ianto's thoughts, which tended to go in circles and came in flashes and emotions, impression instead of full sentences, ever were. _"You don't need eyes to see."_

The logical part of Ianto wanted to argue that no, eyes were for seeing. That was what they did, and if he couldn't open his eyes, then he wouldn't be able to see. A solid argument from his usual position—only he wasn't in his usual position anymore, was he?

If he could only open his eyes, he'd be able to see where he was.

A disappointed sigh, not unlike the kind his mum would heave when Ianto came home too late, tore through his head. _"You better be smarter than this."_

Biting back the desire to argue, Ianto let go of his eyes and looked with his ears; let go of his ears and listened with his hair; let go of his hair and his hands and his feet and his back and just _was_. The same way the voice _was_ in his head like it belonged there, he spread out through the space, through what had been dark and heavy and now softly flickered with opaque lights.

"Where am I?" he tried to say, then bit off the sentence and let go of his mouth, letting the words _be_ and trusting that they would reach the voice.

" _That hardly matters,"_ it said in a playful tone he recognized as Yvonne's. _"What matters is why you're here."_

"Why _am_ I here?" Ianto's skin asked before it, too, was let go.

" _You don't belong_ there _."_ The voice rose until it sounded incredulous enough, then fell again _. "You've a plan to follow through with, Ianto Jones."_

Not the plan to defeat the 456, surely. Something bigger, then, something that warranted this sort of… something. A distant part of Ianto still wondered where he was, while a nearer part grew comfortable with not knowing, merely suspecting but not coming to terms with the physical improbabilities. Like teleport sickness, back when Jack had explained it. _Jack_. Ianto wasn't sure just how big of a cock-up that had been, marching in guns blazing and getting a whole building killed—it was par for the course for Torchwood, the second massacre Ianto had survived—but it had ended with him dead. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

He _had_ survived, hadn't he?

" _Not yet."_ The voice laughed.

"But why?" Ianto wanted to ask, now confident he'd be able to do it properly, only the words came out of his mouth, echoed in his ears, and sent goosebumps down his arms and legs. He went to ask again and it hurt, the darkness pressing down the same as before onto his newly-acquired body, the voice gone from his head as if it had never been there, and the harsh fluorescent lights of a warehouse shining through his eyelids.

Odd. How quickly he had gotten used to not having a body, some part of his brain thinking that maybe it would be simpler if he didn't have to deal with the world anymore. How quickly, now, he got used to being alive, to the aches and pains that had become constant companions to sleepless nights and fast chases down Cardiff streets, to the air filling his collapsed lungs, and to Jack at his side once more.

 _Something more_ , the voice had said, and its phantom presence sent a shock down Ianto's spine that Jack brushed away, rubbing between Ianto's shoulder blades and laughing at the odds stacked against them.

Laughing, why? For the same reason Ianto fought the mirth that threatened to bubble up his throat, affirming life, the bright sky outside the warehouse and the clear air that he could once again breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was debating expanding this chapter and making it a separate story, but that's another project for another day :P
> 
> In the meantime, thank you for reading!!

**Author's Note:**

> The general run-down here: CoE didn't happen and Ianto is alive and well. I'm thinking that this is going to be a 5-ficlet collection (unconnected, one a day for the next five days, give or take) to really hammer in the fact that Ianto's all good. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think, and say hi on tumblr! :D


End file.
